Sursa: XGeorgia’s President Salome Zourabishvili has called on the European Union to respond decisively and be vigilant about a new phase in Russia’s hybrid war against the continent.
In a remote interview with Romanian outlet HotNews, the Georgian leaders warned about the dangers of digital propaganda and Europe’s responsibility to counter the attacks.
When Russia attacked Ukraine in the spring of 2022, some of the fastest and most massive demonstrations against the aggressors were in Georgia. Because the countries of the East know what the autocratic regime in Russia means, Salome Zourabishvili told the outlet.
The French-born Georgian president claims Russia is trying out hybrid threats in Eastern Europe and in the absence of a robust response, democracy will suffer.
“Romania, Georgia and Moldova are testing grounds for a new strategy, which uses election manipulation, propaganda and digital technologies to destabilize democracies,” she said.
Mrs Zourabichvili is the former Soviet republic’s first female president and a former French diplomat. She was born in Paris in 1952 into a family of Georgian refugees where she studied at the prestigious Sciences Po..
She served as France’s ambassador to Georgia and later as Georgia’s foreign minister before becoming president of Georgia in 2018.
“(Russia’s) military aggression is obvious: you know where it’s coming from, you know who is responsible. In the case of hybrid warfare, it’s much harder” to detect, she said.
Asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose the wat, she responded.
“I think she has already lost. In the sense that it has not achieved any of the military objectives it had at the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine. He lost all military prestige.
Putin hasn’t managed to do what he had planned — to conquer Kyiv, to change the regime, counting on the fact that Zelensky would leave the country. And three years later, he faces an extremely resilient Ukraine, a Ukraine that continues to fight. He did not prove that he was the great military strategist he claimed to be.”
“And the costs for him were huge: in military resources, in equipment, in human resources — which may matter less in Russia, but still matters. So, it is not a victory. I think he realized that he lost and now he is changing his strategy.
What can you say about Georgia, Romania? About the European Union?
“ This is what I am trying to say: that, having failed through military strategy and direct aggression, it is now turning to another form of war – the hybrid strategy. And Georgia is the testing ground for that. Romania was a partial test. Which, so far hasn’t worked.”
Moldova was also a kind of experiment: how to take control of a state without military confrontation, but through apparently democratic instruments – election manipulation, intense propaganda, supported through multiple channels. And what we see today in Georgia is this large-scale phenomenon. In other parts it was only on a small scale. “
“We are now seeing propaganda, laws inspired by Russia, a government that is beginning to look more and more like an extension of Russian interests – and which, through its own decisions, has diverted Georgia from the European path, announced the halt of European integration and has broken the link with what, since independence, has been the common aspiration of more than 80% of the population, according to all opinion polls in this country.
– You often say that freedom is a daily struggle. How much of this struggle is still being waged here and how much is ignored?
– In Romania, I think you fought during the elections and managed to keep at bay the main threat…. I hope our fight will stop it. But it’s a fight that continues. The fact that you prevented an electoral round from bringing about political change like the one in Georgia does not mean that the battle is over. “
Because we see… everywhere in Europe, this propaganda machine, which is something that Russia masters better than military intervention. Propaganda has always been the preferred tool. For Putin, it is an area in which he excels because he comes from the KGB — and as they say, “there are no former KGB officer. He understands this game perfectly….
As the war next door rages on, more fighter jets for Romania coming in